10 June 2011

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Print is dying. But don't stop the presses because it's old news. It's also the subject of Page One, a documentary about media transformation reflexively told through the media desk at the New York Times. An overview of the troubled state of journalism today, the movie sums up arguments anyone with a passing interest in the subject already knows—about the shift in ownership of the means of distribution, about changing advertising models, about buyouts and layoffs, about Julian Assange. The movie is also a convincing if cheerleading argument for the importance of the Times. (In one amazing smackdown, columnist David Carr humiliates a Vice editor following a flippant remark about the paper's Liberia coverage.) With "unprecedented access" to the Times newsroom, director Andrew Rossi captures (and possibly influences) the staffers' dogged professionalism: reporters chasing stories and challenging sources; editors debating newsworthiness during night shifts.